4U City Red (chapter)
This chapter follows and concludes the story arc that takes place with Riff and Zoë displaced to 4U City in the Dimension of Rain. Stories in this chapter: *Precious Metals *Another Year in the Life of a Villain *4U City Red * Breaking the News * *more Classic Pawnz week* * On The Same Page The situation has reached a boiling point in 4U City, and the resistance against His Masterness takes up arms to fight the oppression. DoR Torg acts as their leader while Riff insists on doing things his own way without letting anyone know what he is up to. Meanwhile, the events in Sluggy Prime look more and more like they could spawn the R&D wars and the rise of 4U City. Torg's plotting against Hereti-Corp results in an alliance between Crushestro and the NoFun mutants, like the Outsider army. Meanwhile, Hereti-Corp have stolen Riff's designs for the Mark 19 robot, and develops a weaponized DFA gun, foreshadowing the coming of the REA-5 forces. A long series of dramatic and critical revelations follow after the spoiler warning. Riff have long since figured out that the hiding place of His Masterness would not be as obvious as the Central Tower, but instead be the "100% human free" robotics factory. He therefore reroutes all the explosive 4U-coffee to the robotics factory, and blow it up. After the explosion, Riff and executive Rammer enter the undamaged underground lair, where they expect to find His Masterness. It is revealed that Rammer is the son of DoR Schlock, who was shot and used to be His Masterness. Rammers motivation to find His Masterness is therefore to revenge his fathers death. It turns out that His Masterness is DoR Riff (old-Riff), but it is currently running on auto pilot. Riff was betrayed by Schlock before the rise of 4U City, stranded in a parallel dimension. He eventually found his way back, discovering a repentant Schlock (with the half-mad Frog) who tried desperately to repair the damage he had done to the dimensions stability. Riff decided to help rather than punish Schlock, who eventually died of old age. Schlocks death triggered a number of post-mortem messages to be relayed, one was (presumably) the revelation that Corsica had been replaced a number of times, a revlation that drove Frog mad and caused him to shoot up Schlocks corpse. Another post-mortem message was Schlocks will that his corpse should be presented to Rammer. The bullet-holes led Rammer to the false conclusion that his father was murdered. After the initial explanation about His Masterness, a series of explanations follow. The judgement chutes lead to "truely-timeless space", so the judged people are only frozen in time and space, and can be brought back once the city reboots. Which it does about every seven years, where all inhabitants have their bodies and mind reset to a snapshot by the nanites. The exchange of REA-5 by the robotic REA-6 was an act taken by the city AI, it was also the AI that decided to use massive force against the uprising and the coffee-desperate citizens. Finally, overuse of DFA technology "damage the dimensional borders" which threatens a dimensional catastrophe. Preventing this is the reason why old-Riff have been too busy to manage the city affairs. Short after the victory of REA-5 forces against the city, a massive army of outsiders enter 4U City, which is now defenceless due to the offline AI. The army is defeated mainly by Riff cleverly managing the resources available to the AI, allowing it to use orbital cannons against the outsiders only, and not the population. The dramatic end-point is the relevation that Zoë have been physically healed by the nanites, but her brain is totaly fried, she is a vegetable. At the goodbye party held that should DFA Riff to his home dimension, Riff drug up the guests to hijack the DFA and go back in time to before the fight with Oasis. There he makes the nanites take a snapshot of her, which enable them to restore her brain once brought back to 4U City. It all ends happily with Riff and Zoë reunited with Torg in their own dimension, However, Torg is consumed with guilt about his part in making the R&D wars a near-reality. In Breaking the News, Torg and Riff have to find a way to explain Zoë's disappearance to her parents, who think she's dead. Eventually they do, and later Bun-Bun, Torg, and Riff each fill Zoë in on their battles with Oasis, the minions, and 4U City.